


Midnight in Manhattan

by BeccaAnne814



Series: Christmas/New Year’s Stories [15]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Intrigue, Mystery, New Year’s Eve fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 13:51:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17245403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeccaAnne814/pseuds/BeccaAnne814
Summary: Ever since you were a child, one year for you lasts 366 days while the rest of the world only gets 365.  When you finally meet someone you can see yourself falling in love with, will you find the courage to share your secret with him?





	Midnight in Manhattan

The first time it happened, she'd been twelve years old and she hadn't understood what was going on.  For twenty-four hours she'd hidden in her room with the bedcovers drawn up over her head as she quietly sobbed into her pillow.  She'd hoped and prayed that her mind had conjured up what she could only assume was a nightmare that she was unable to wake up from.

The eerie silence that had enveloped her that day had been the most terrifying part of her ordeal.  Growing up in Brooklyn, she'd grown accustomed to the constant sound of car horns blaring, of emergency vehicles with their screaming sirens, and the shriek of metal on metal as the train outside her bedroom window passed by like clockwork both day and night.  These were the sounds that all New Yorkers learned to ignore over time—the metropolitan version of ambient white noise.

She'd willed herself to fall asleep in the hopes that when she awoke again, all would be right with the world, but the ability to sleep eluded her.  Her mind raced as her imagination took over, conjuring up one impossible scenario after another to explain what had happened to her until terror had a firm grip on her heart and she found it difficult to draw air into her lungs.

Eventually, she'd emerged from beneath the covers to stare at the clock that had appeared before her when she'd first discovered her predicament.  It was an older desk clock, like something found in an antique store with its polished wood exterior and elaborate hands to tell the minute and hour.  But this was no ordinary antique clock—there was some type of light behind the face that allowed it to emit a warm glow that had illuminated the entire room.  It had been set to midnight when she'd found it on the coffee table in the living room, but unlike anything else in her parents' tiny apartment—or the world from what she could see through her window—it was the only thing that worked.

As she'd lain beneath the covers cowering with fear, the hands of the clock had continued to silently track the passage of time.  As the sky had begun to lighten with the coming dawn, she'd peeked out to see that the black filigreed spokes were right on time to mark the beginning of a new day—of a new year.

She'd eventually pulled the clock under the covers with her in a vain attempt to find comfort in the only other thing that seemed to be alive—even if it was merely an inanimate object that only moved due to the gears hidden within its mahogany frame.  Watching the hands on the clock helped to calm her nerves, but not to the point that she was tempted to venture outside of her bedroom to face the empty, silent world she'd found herself trapped in.

When the minute hand began to slowly creep back toward midnight, she'd held her breath.  For some reason, she'd decided that the nightmare she'd been trapped in could only be for twenty-four hours, and that once the clock was back to where it had started she'd finally be able to escape her prison of solitude.

Just before the clock struck midnight, she'd tightly closed her eyes.  She heard the chime—a sound so soft that she wasn't sure if it had been real or just the wishful dreaming of a scared little girl.  With a start, her eyes popped open, but she was no longer huddled in the cocoon of her comforter.  Somehow she found herself back in the living room, but this time she wasn't alone.  Her parents were standing in front of the Christmas tree kissing as the ball in Times Square burst with light on the muted TV in the corner.  She looked toward the coffee table, but the clock was gone.

She'd chalked the entire experience up to a vividly realistic dream brought on from too much sugar and caffeine in her attempt to stay awake to ring in the new year.  Her parents hadn't mentioned experiencing anything out of the ordinary, and as far as she could tell, the twenty-four hours she'd spent alone in the apartment had simply been a figment of her imagination.

She'd thought about telling her closest friends, but after careful consideration, she'd held her tongue on the off-chance that no one would understand and make fun of her for being so scared of a silly dream.  Her life went on, and eventually she'd forgotten about it altogether—until it happened again.

The second time it happened, she'd still been awake.  In the blink of an eye her parents, and her best friend, disappeared and silence settled over the world like a thick blanket.  In the pitch black darkness, a light began to glow brighter and as she carefully made her way toward it, she discovered the clock had returned.

As the years of her childhood passed, she'd learned to enjoy her day of solitude instead of fearing it as she had that first New Year's Day.  Most people only dreamed of having the world to themselves for a entire day to do whatever they wished, so she did her best to fill those twenty-four uninterrupted hours with activities she loved—which was mostly reading.

She'd been scared that when she'd gone off to college the clock would fail to appear on New Year's Eve and she'd no longer get to experience what she'd eventually dubbed as January 0th.  To help lessen the blow, she'd gone to a party with her roommate across campus, but when the ball dropped in Times Square her clock appeared again as everyone else in the room disappeared.

Being in a new city all alone was a daunting experience that first year of college, but eventually she found a job that allowed her to travel to different places around the world.  She'd learned to pick locks so that she could explore places on the bucket list she created that should have been off-limits on New Year's Eve.  She'd known she was breaking and entering, but she'd reasoned that since she'd never caused any damage, or stole anything, there was no harm in what she did.  That and the fact that whatever she did in her solitary twenty-four hours had no impact on the world around her.

One of her fondest days was the day she'd spent in the Louvre in Paris.  The light of her clock—which she'd lovingly dubbed Cogsworth—filled the museum, and gave the paintings and sculptures a glow that she was sure artificial light failed to do during normal hours.  The empty halls were a blessing as she took her time wandering the enormous building and gazing at the works of art she'd only dreamed of seeing before.

In the years since her mysterious clock had appeared, she'd never divulged her secret to a single living soul.  January 0th was her day—and her day alone.  Who would've believed her anyhow?

When Thanos had come to Earth and wiped out half of humanity, life as she'd known it changed forever.  At that point, she'd been working as an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. for ten years, so she understood the significance of what the Titan had done.  The New Year's Eve after she'd lost half of her family had been the first time since the clock had appeared that she'd been terrified of spending an entire day alone.  

Both of her parents had been turned to dust, so she'd quietly slipped away from the compound in upstate New York to spend January 0th in the comfort of her childhood bedroom.  She'd sought out Captain Rogers in the aftermath that Thanos had left on Earth, so instead of wallowing in her own grief and terror as she'd done at twelve years old, she'd spent the day working on the idea that the Captain and Agent Romanoff had come up a few days before.  It hadn't seemed as though it would work, but it was the only idea they'd been able to come up with—and they needed to do something to try to put the universe to rights.

That following Thanksgiving had found her sitting around a table with the people she'd grown to love and trust in the aftermath of the snap, along with those they'd been able to save from the Soul Stone.  As they took turns listing what they were thankful for, one common theme kept emerging—being together again as a family.  Old grudges and hurt feelings had been put away, and for a while at least, the universe seemed to exist in a state of peace like it had never known before.  None of them were naïve enough to believe that it would last forever, but they vowed to enjoy it even more so since they knew they would be called into service again in the not-too-distant future.

She'd been a new addition to the team once Thanos had accomplished what he'd set out to do, so once the rest of the team returned, she'd felt awkward and out of place.  Everyone had gone out of their way to include her as a part of the family, but it did nothing to lessen the stigma of being an outsider.  

At least she wasn't the only one that felt out of place.

She'd noticed from the moment everyone had returned that there was someone else that felt the same way as she did—and he did nothing to hide the fact that he saw himself as an interloper.  The Captain had insisted that his best friend join them in New York after they'd finally defeated the Titan once and for all, but she could tell that he was hesitant to come back to the U.S. after all he'd been forced to do while HYDRA had been in control of him for the better part of a century.

She'd didn't know why it mattered so much to her, but she found herself wanting him to join them in New York almost as much as the Captain did.  She knew if she took the time to really think about her reasons for wanting him to be around, she'd discover the answer to the question she'd continually forced into the farthest reaches of her mind, but she wasn't ready to go there yet.  Unfortunately, that didn't mean that others hadn't caught on.

"Why don't you tell him?"

YN's head whipped up from the report she was reading on her tablet to find Wanda casually leaning against the doorjamb as her finger made slow circles above a steaming mug—the red glow of her powers idly stirring the drink.

"Tell who what?" YN asked although she knew exactly who and what Wanda was talking about.

The brunette gave her a sly look as she brought the mug to her lips and took a tentative sip.

With a huff of indignation, YN slid the tablet away from her and closed her eyes.  "Stop reading my mind, Wanda."

"It doesn't take a mind reader to figure out that you're in love with the Tin Man."

YN looked up to see Sam standing in the doorway with a smug look on his face.  "Not you too."

"Come on, YN," Sam urged as he pulled out a chair opposite from her at the conference table.  "He bought you that clock for Christmas, didn't he?  I try to ignore the guy as much as possible, but even I can see he's got it bad for you."

YN's thoughts went to the gift that Bucky had given her a few days prior.  Some of them had gone on an impromptu shopping excursion just before Christmas and had wandered into an antique shop in the small town a few miles from the compound.  She'd immediately been drawn to the wooden desk clock that looked almost identical to Cogsworth.  After a quick inspection, she'd come to the conclusion that it couldn't possibly be her clock and she'd placed it back on its shelf and had forgotten all about it.  She hadn't said a word to anyone about the clock, but somehow when they'd been opening presents on Christmas morning, she been surprised to discover that Bucky had gone back and purchased the clock for her.  Continuing her trend of denial when it came to the former assassin, she'd simply thanked him for the thoughtful gift and had refused to acknowledge that he must secretly pay as much attention to her as she did to him.

"Sam's right," Wanda said as she straightened up and started to walk away.  "After everything we just went through, I would've thought you'd have learned that we aren't guaranteed anything in this life.  If there's something you want, you have to go after it."

YN opened her mouth to respond, but Wanda was gone before she had a chance to speak.  Turning to Sam, he gave her a smile and a wink before he too got up and left her alone with her thoughts.

Letting out a sigh of frustration, she ran her hands down her face.  Were they right? Was there a chance that her feelings might be returned?

She allowed her mind to finally go down the path it had desperately wanted to go since the moment she'd met Bucky Barnes.  She'd come up with excuse after excuse as to why it was a bad idea to let her feelings for him cloud her better judgement—they'd all just gone through a traumatic event—he'd already been through eighty years of trauma—she wasn't sure she was going to stay with the Avengers, or if she'd be called back to the field.  All of these excuses were valid, but deep down she knew the real reason why she'd kept him at arms length—she had a secret that she couldn't share with anyone else, and it was impossible to have a relationship with someone when she couldn't be completely honest with them about who she really was.

Eventually, she'd packed away her emotions and tied them up with a nice little bow to be shoved into the back of her mind where she hoped they'd stay, but that wasn't going to be the case.  Now that she'd all but admitted to herself that she yearned for something more than the nomadic life she'd lived for years, she couldn't just compartmentalize her feelings anymore.  Her emotions were like a fire raging in her mind and the more she tried to douse them, the stronger they continued to grow.

By the time New Year's Eve rolled around, she was completely and hopelessly unable to deny the way she felt any longer.  Tony had planned a huge gala in the city, and YN vowed to herself that she would tell Bucky everything before midnight.  If he thought she was crazy, then so be it, but at least she could say that she tried.

She'd underestimated the amount of activity going on in the Tower, and between helping to decorate for the party and being forced into a dress and make up by Wanda and Natasha, she hadn't found time to talk to Bucky before the guests began to arrive.

The band Tony had hired to play had started the night off at a deafening level, but as the clock slowly wound down towards midnight, they began to play slower tunes.  One by one, couples began to take the dance floor.  YN's eyes did a quick sweep of the room—hoping that Bucky wasn't already dancing with someone else.

"May I have this dance?"

The rich baritone of his voice was as unmistakable to her as the sound of her own voice, and a smile immediately spread across her face as she turned to face him.  He'd donned a tuxedo for the occasion, but he'd left his hair hanging loose around his shoulders and had opted not to shave the thick stubble that adorned the lower half of his face.  It was a contradictory look that somehow seemed to suit him perfectly.

His hand was outstretched toward her, so she silently placed hers into his in lieu of an answer.  Being held in his embrace was everything she'd ever hoped it would be, and within moments she was drunk on the feel of his broad shoulders beneath her fingertips.

"I'm glad you. . ." she began.

"I hope I'm not. . ." he said at the same time as her.

They shared a laugh at their own awkwardness, and for some reason that was enough to put them at ease around one another.  With a smile of encouragement, he indicated that she should speak first.

"I'm glad you asked me to dance."

"You are?"

She dropped her head—too embarrassed to meet his searching gaze.  "I promised myself that I would talk to you tonight."

"That's funny," he replied, causing her look up at him in alarm.  "I promised myself the same thing."

Relief washed over her.  Sam and Wanda had been right about the two of them, and they were also right about wasting precious time when none of them knew if tomorrow would bring the next apocalyptic event.

"I have to tell you something," she began before she could talk herself out of it.  "Something I've never told a single soul in my entire life."

Bucky's eyebrows furrowed with concern.  "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to."

YN shook her head as a smile lifted the corners of her lips.  "I'm not doing a good job of this.  'Have to' isn't the right way to phrase it."  She paused for a moment to find the right words.  "I _want_ to tell you because for my entire life I've kept this secret from everyone, and you're the first person I've ever truly wanted to share it with."

"I'm assuming from the smile on your face that it's something good?"

She shook her head slightly as she pondered his question.  "I don't really know if it's good or bad—it's just. . ."

The echoing chorus of hundreds of people beginning to countdown to midnight interrupted her train of thought.  For a moment she thought it might be a sign that her secret wasn't meant to be shared with anyone else, but as her gaze locked with Bucky's, she realized that it wasn't Fate that had stopped her, it was just bad timing.

As the crowd continued the countdown to the new year, she decided that having a full day to figure out exactly how to word her confession to him might be a good thing.  But then she saw his eyes begin to darken and she immediately knew what he planned to do at midnight.  Knowing that she would have to wait twenty-four more hours before she could experience the feel of his lips against hers spurred her into action.  Just before the people around them called out Happy New Year, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

Initially she thought the shock of kissing him had caused her to lose her sense of hearing, but when he pulled away with a start, she realized that she'd somehow brought him into her private world.  The room around them was pitch black and completely empty.

"Is this you?"

Her mind was reeling, so it took her a few moments to process his question.  "No. . .I mean, yes. . .I, uh. . ."  Her shoulders slumped as she blew out a frustrated breath.  "To be perfectly honest, I have no idea how this all works."

"But you knew this was going to happen?" he asked as he pulled away from her and made his way to the wall of windows overlooking city.

For a moment she thought he was angry, but then she realized that his vision must have adjusted to the dark more quickly than hers—probably due to the serum.  As her eyes adjusted, she made her way to where he stood and looked up at him hopefully.

"I've never seen the city like this," he finally said after a moment.

"The lights are beautiful, but for some reason I prefer it like this," she admitted quietly.  "You're lucky there's a sliver of moon out tonight.  When it's a new moon, it's so dark you can't see your hand in front of your face."

"How often does this happen to you?"

"Every New Year's Eve since I was twelve, but this is the first time I've been able to bring someone with me."

She'd spent years trying to research the science behind the phenomenon of her day of solitude and the closest explanation she could come up with was that it was a bend in the fabric of time that she somehow got caught up in every year.  How the clock played into it, though, was still a mystery.

"Wait a second.  Where's Cogsworth?" she asked as realization dawned.  She'd been so caught up in the fact that Bucky was with her that she hadn't noticed that her clock was missing.

"Cogsworth?"

"It's what I call my clock," she explained as she looked around the room for the familiar glow.

"The clock I bought you for Christmas?" Bucky asked, looking more confused than before.

"It's not the same clo. . ." Her words died on her lips as her thoughts became a jumble in her mind.  It wasn't the same clock, was it?  Could it be?  But how?

Without a word to Bucky, she began racing toward the stairwell that would take her to her room.  The sound of footsteps echoing behind her told her that Bucky wasn't too far behind her, but she didn't have time to worry about that at the moment.

As soon as she opened the door to her bedroom, the hallway was flooded with light.  Bucky had caught up to her as she'd reached her door, so the sound of his sharply inhaled breath was easy to distinguish in the near perfect silence that engulfed them.

"It can't be," she said as she strode across the room and picked up the clock.

"Okay, I'm completely confused," Bucky admitted as he drug his hands through his hair.  "What the hell is going on?"

YN looked up from the clock in her hands to the man standing before her.  "I don't have all the answers, but I'll tell you what I know."

She took a seat on the edge of the bed and patted the space beside her.  When he'd finally joined her, she passed the clock over to him and began to tell him the secret she'd kept locked away for most of her life.  To his credit, he never interrupted her, or even gave her a disbelieving look—but then, he was experiencing it with her, so he couldn't very well deny the truth of her words.

"Cogsworth has always appeared right beside me when the clock struck midnight," she told him as she came to the end of her story.  "When I saw this clock in the antique store I convinced myself that it couldn't be the same clock, but somehow it is—and you made sure that I got it."

"How do you know this is the clock I bought you?" Bucky asked as he finally broke his silence.

She gave him a shy smile.  "Because I brought it with me from the compound and left it sitting on my nightstand."

Bucky looked incredulous.  "You brought the clock with you?" 

She shrugged her shoulders.  "Maybe I subconsciously knew it was the same clock, or maybe I just wanted to test a theory, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to bring it here to compare with Cogsworth once he appeared."

"But he didn't appear next you at midnight," Bucky reminded her.

"No," she agreed.  "He was right where I'd left him."

"So what does this mean?"

She started to chuckle.  "Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd like to think that Fate didn't want me to spend this day alone anymore."

"You think Fate brought us together?"

"You don't?" she asked tentatively, hoping that he wouldn't think she was being foolish.

He let out a deep breath.  "Fate hasn't been all that kind to me. . ."

Reaching out a hand, she cupped his jaw and turned his face to meet her gaze again.  "Maybe Fate has decided you've been through enough.  Maybe this has always been meant to be."

Bucky laid a hand over hers as it rested along on his cheek.  "Maybe you're right."

They sat there in silence enjoying the moment, but YN knew that it wouldn't be the last one they shared.  They had an entire day to get to know one another without the pressures of the world interfering and the giddy sense of adventure that she'd felt as a child came rushing back.  There were so many new experiences to be had now that she had someone to share it with.

"We've got twenty-four hours," she told him in a breathless rush.  "What have you always wanted to do that you never could?"

He didn't even have to think about it—he'd had the same wish his entire life and he'd yet to make it become a reality.  He'd come close in Wakanda during the two years he'd lived with T'Challa and Shuri, but it wasn't the same halfway across the world.  

"The stars."

With a knowing smile, she nodded her head.  "Tony has a telescope on the roof—and it's not one of those cheap toys you get from Amazon.  Seeing the stars in all their glory without the light pollution of the city is something out of a fantasy."

She stood and extended a hand, smiling when he laced his fingers through hers without a moments hesitation.  She led him to the roof where they stared at the night sky until the rays of the rising sun overpowered the stars and they were forced to go back inside.

They'd walked hand in hand through the empty streets of New York as she told him about the places she'd gone and things she'd done throughout the years.  When she mentioned the Louvre, he'd suggested they go to the Met.  She'd been there before, but having someone to share the experience with gave it a completely different meaning.

In the years since it had begun, January 0th had seemed to last longer than just a single day, but with Bucky it was as though time was flying by faster than normal.  One minute they'd been strolling through Central Park under the stars and the next, the hands of the clock were almost back to midnight.

"So what happens when the clock strikes twelve?" Bucky asked as they sat on her bed and stared at the clock glowing softly in her hands.

"Everything resets," she said with a shrug.  "It's as though the last twenty-four hours never happened.  I've always been able to remember what I did during that time, but for everyone else around me, not a second has passed."

"Do you think I'll be able to keep my memories of this day?"

It wasn't so much the question he asked, but the way he asked it that broke her heart.  Up until that point, she hadn't even considered that he would forget the day they'd shared, and now she realized that he was scared that these memories—like so many others—might be be stolen away from him and he was completely powerless to stop it.

She placed the clock back on the nightstand and took his hands in hers.  "I have no idea what's going to happen at midnight, but I do know that we're going to be right where we were twenty-four hours ago—and that wasn't all that bad of a place to leave off."

A grin slowly started to lift the corners of his lips.  "It was a pretty good end to a truly horrible year, wasn't it?"

"I prefer to think of it as an exceptional beginning to what is going to be a phenomenal year."

"I like the way you think."

Cupping the back of his neck, she drew his lips to hers as she heard the faint chime of the clock behind her.  The transition between January 0th and January 1st was seamless as she found herself back on the dance floor with Bucky's arms wrapped around her.  

This kiss was even better than the first, and she was reluctant to see it end, but she was painfully aware of the crush of people around her and she didn't want to make a spectacle of themselves in front of Tony's guests.  Pulling away just enough to break the kiss, she slowly opened her eyes and waited for him to do the same.

As his blue-grey eyes met hers, she waited with bated breath to see what—if anything—he remembered from their day together.

"So, doll," he whispered with a mischievous glint in his eyes, "where would you like to go next year?"

The smile that came across her face was one of pure happiness.  For the first time in her life, she didn't have to be alone anymore.

"You know," she said after a while.  "I've never spent January 0th in Alaska.  I hear the Northern Lights are a sight to behold this time of year."

"January 0th?" he asked.  "Is zeroeth even a word?"

"Well, what would you call it?  Leap Day is already taken."

He ran his fingers over the scruffy beard on his chin as he thought for a moment.  "How about we just call it our anniversary?"

Warmth began spreading throughout her entire body upon hearing his words.  It was a feeling she'd never experienced before, and the only word she could find to explain the way she felt was love.  For the first time in her entire life, she was in love and the feeling seemed to be mutual.

"I like the way you think," she said, repeating his words back to him.

The party around them continued to go on, but the two of them might as well have been the only two people on the planet again for all the attention they gave to the other guests.  Without a word to anyone, they quietly slipped away from the crowd and headed back to her room to begin the first day of the rest of their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> _Happy New Year!! I hope 2019 brings you all the happiness you deserve! Thank you for reading this story! I hope you enjoyed it! It’s always hard to find unique ideas for New Year’s Eve, but I stumbled upon this prompt yesterday evening and I couldn’t wait to get up this morning to write it out for you guys! What would you do if you found yourself completely alone in the world for twenty-four hours? Would you hide beneath the covers like she did as a child, or would you go out and explore the world? I’d like to think that I’d be the explorer, especially if I knew there was nothing lurking in the shadows. Do you think it was Bucky buying her the clock, or her kissing him at the stroke of midnight that brought him into her private world? I left it a little ambiguous because even I’m not sure which action caused him to be folded into her little pocket of time. I’m interested to hear your theories!_


End file.
